


Shame and Necessity

by Philosopher_King



Series: Angsty Zuko-centric Vignettes [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Head Shaving, Past Violence, conversations about hair
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23214328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Philosopher_King/pseuds/Philosopher_King
Summary: At the Western Air Temple, Zuko walks in on Aang shaving his head."You used to do this, too," Aang remarked. "When I first met you. Was that a tradition of your people, too?"
Relationships: Aang & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Angsty Zuko-centric Vignettes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1718329
Comments: 28
Kudos: 771





	Shame and Necessity

Zuko instinctively rose with the sun. It had not always been that way, but his training in the techniques of firebending had made him as attuned to the movement of the sun as he was to the rhythms of his own body, feeling its presence or absence as he felt satiety or hunger, alertness or fatigue.

Part of teaching Aang to be a firebender was instilling in him this same attunement to the source of their power. But until he attained it himself, that meant that Zuko had to force him to wake up at sunrise to do breathing exercises and basic forms and to feel how his power waxed as the sun climbed into the sky.

But because the rest of the temporary inhabitants of the Western Air Temple saw no reason why they should also wake at the sweaty asscrack of dawn (Toph’s expression), it was agreed that the firebending master and his pupil should take quarters at some distance from the rooms where the rest of the party slept, so that whatever measures Zuko needed to take to roust Aang out of bed would not wake the whole camp. The one exception was Katara, who mistrusted Zuko even more than she hated morning. She chose a room near Aang’s so that she would be able to hear if anything was amiss. This meant that she was also woken by Zuko’s hammering on Aang’s door and drill-sergeant yelling at his trainee to shift himself, Aang’s panicked “Yes, Sifu Hotman!”, and Zuko’s near-daily “Stop calling me that!” (punctuating expletive optional). She usually went back to sleep for an hour or so, then rose before the rest of the camp to start preparing breakfast, keeping Aang and Zuko within her line of sight.

It was a week since Aang and Zuko had returned from their journey to find the Sun Warriors. That morning Zuko had already pounded on Aang’s door and received an assurance that he was awake and would be out shortly, but almost ten minutes later, Aang’s door was still closed. So Zuko barged into his student’s room, shouting, “Aang, what’s taking so long, we’re wasting dayligh— oh.”

He had expected to find Aang still in bed, or else dawdling about getting dressed. But instead he was seated at the little dressing table with a washbasin, shaving his head. His head stayed smooth enough that he must have been shaving it every day, but usually at a different time of day, because Zuko had never caught him at it first thing in the morning.

“Sorry,” Aang said, not stopping the practiced movement of the razor in long stripes up his scalp. “I’ll be done soon.”

“It’s fine,” Zuko mumbled, already turning back toward the door. “I’ll wait outside.”

“You can stay. I won’t be long.”

“I don’t— I don’t want to intrude,” Zuko said, looking away.

Aang paused. “You’re not.” He gave Zuko a long, assessing look. “Something can be sacred and important without necessarily being private,” he said at last.

There was another pause. “It’s a last connection with your people, their traditions,” Zuko said, still not looking up. “I’m the great-grandson of the man who…” He trailed off.

“That’s not your fault,” Aang said steadily, firmly. Zuko finally raised his head to meet his gaze before he turned his eyes aside again.

“You used to do this, too,” Aang remarked. “When I first met you. Was that a tradition of your people, too?”

Zuko gave a short, humorless chuckle. “At first? No. The hair had to be shaved off the left side of my head to treat the burn—what hadn’t already burned off, that is. After that, I shaved the rest for symmetry—and kept doing it as a mark of my shame. But I kept the tail as a sign of the nobility I had lost, and hoped to win back. When Azula made clear that my father would not welcome me back, I cut off the tail and let the rest grow out… to blend in in the Earth Kingdom, yes, but also to acknowledge that what I had to be ashamed of, and what I could still hope for, weren’t what I had thought they were.” He paused again, then with another humorless laugh added, “I wasn’t sure the hair would grow back. I guess I got lucky.”

Another pause, a look that went right past Aang and through the wall behind him. Aang waited patiently for him to continue. Abruptly he said, seeming to address whatever or whoever his gaze was fixed on behind the wall, “I don’t even remember what the pain felt like… not with any specificity. But I remember the smell of my hair burning. And my face, like…” He caught himself and stopped. “Sorry,” he said, returning to the present moment. “You’re a vegetarian, aren’t you?”

Aang filled in the train of thought that had led to that apparent non sequitur and his stomach turned. “Raava have mercy…” he breathed.

“Who’s Raava?” Zuko asked, frowning.

“I don’t know,” Aang admitted. “It’s just something the monks used to say.”

“Ah.” Zuko looked down again, in guilt or shame.

“Can you tell me what happened? How you were burned?” Aang asked gently.

“I —” Zuko opened his mouth and then closed it again. “Not yet,” he said. Then a quick self-correction in a sharper tone: “Not now. We’re still wasting daylight. Stories about our troubled pasts can wait until after dark.”

Aang knew Zuko’s explanation for the delay wasn’t completely honest, but he took it as a not-quite-promise to tell him—not tonight, not tomorrow night, but at some point. And the reference to “ _our_ troubled pasts” was a subtle indication of reciprocal curiosity: he wanted to know about Aang’s old life in the Air Temple, to understand what his ancestor and his nation had destroyed.

“Finish with that and meet me outside in two minutes,” Zuko barked. “I’ll be counting, and every second you’re late will cost you another hot squat.”

“Yes, sir, Sifu Hotman, sir!” Aang gave Zuko a strange version of a Fire Nation military salute, which was probably not only a century out of date, but also incorrect even for last century. Today Zuko just responded with a long-suffering sigh.

**Author's Note:**

> The reason for the title is that I went to a talk about Bernard Williams the day I posted this on Tumblr (a couple weeks ago, pre-quarantine), and he wrote a book called _Shame and Necessity_ (which is actually a joke about another famous lecture series-turned-book, Saul Kripke’s _Naming and Necessity_ ). I decided not to go with the more obvious stupid jokes, including "Water, earth, fire, hair" and "Hair Nomads." You’re welcome.


End file.
